The present disclosure concerns apparatus and methods for manufacturing components of dynamoelectric machine components. For example, the apparatus and methods may be used in the manufacture of stators for induction motors. The apparatus and methods may include solutions for inserting pre-wound coils in the slots of dynamoelectric machine components. Similar examples of machine components in which wire coils may be inserted have been described in Ponzio et al. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,528,822 and 5,664,317, which are hereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.
Wire coils are commonly required in two-pole stators. A two-pole stator comprises a bore with two poles that may be diametrically opposite each other inside the bore. The two-pole stator is one of many types of machine components for which the apparatus and methods of the present disclosure may provide coil insertion solutions. In one known method for providing stators with wire coils, the poles of the stator may be wound by wire dispensing needles that move around the poles according to the principles described in Luciani et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,991,782, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Methods and apparatus involving wire dispensing needles that move around the poles may require the use of coil support members to support portions of a coil that extend beyond a pole during the winding process.
Pre-wound coils for stators may be initially formed from wire by winding the wire around a template with a rotating wire dispensing flyer. The coil may then be removed from the template and drawn into the stator. Pre-wound coils may have higher coil density than coils wound directly on a pole by dispensing needles. Examples of pre-wound coil forming technology are described in copending Becherucci et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/522,228, filed Mar. 9, 2000, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
Some poles have pole tips that reach outward in a peripheral direction, perhaps following the contour of the outer edge of the bore. When such pole tips are present in a stator, it may be difficult to insert a pre-wound coil in the slots adjacent the poles, because access to the slots from the axial region of the bore may be obstructed or partly obstructed by the pole tips.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide improved apparatus and methods for inserting a portion of a wire coil into a machine component slot. It would also be desirable to provide apparatus and methods for inserting a portion of a pre-wound coil into a machine component slot that is difficult to access from the axial region of the bore.